Microsoft Corp plans to give users of its new Internet browser the ability to stop certain sites from gathering information from users as the company looks to head off federal online privacy legislation.
The opt-in feature, called “tracking protection,” is based on technology developed for Microsoft’s current browser. It was downplayed as the world’s largest software company tried to balance consumers’ demands for privacy with advertisers’ desire to gather data about users.
Microsoft said the technology was based on InPrivate Filtering, a little-used feature in Internet Explorer 8 that allowed certain sites to be blocked, but had to be switched on each time a new browser session was launched.
There is growing concern over Web sites and advertisers using technology to track sites on the Internet to build up profiles of users, generally without their knowledge or explicit consent.
Last week the US Federal Trade Commission backed creation of a “do not track” option that would limit advertisers’ ability to collect consumers’ data online.
Advertisers generally oppose the idea, and several members of the Republican party, which will control the US House of Representatives next year, have criticized legislation as a potential drag on Internet commerce.
Microsoft is trying to satisfy the millions of users of the world’s most popular browser while ratcheting up revenue from advertisers as it tries to catch up with Internet leader Google Inc.
The new feature will be included in Internet Explorer 9, the latest version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, expected to be released some time next year. Microsoft’s browser has about 60 percent market share.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts